The Development Minister put on a therapy class for Opposition MPs which included laughing at the Home Secretary.
The author has the abilities of a sketchwriter, but not of Edmund Burke.
The joint One Nation Caucus and Tory Reform Group conference last weekend, following the recent National Conservative Conference, are pointers to the shape of a possible future.
In the same interview he said “I tend to be rather bad at politics”, which is true if one takes the holding of great offices of state as the yardstick of success.
This powerful focus is too often today reserved for the separatists in the devolved administrations who aim to divide us.
“The problems faced by Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson – and indeed George Osborne and David Cameron – are different from the crises and challenges we face today.”
Rather than an ideological approach, these four ideals – pragmatism, stewardship, One Nation and empowerment – should be the foundations of Conservative economic policy.
Millions are facing hardship and those people in the most vulnerable circumstances need our support the most. We need to be a government for everyone.
The Government could end up with a series of Burnhams and Khans, constantly trying to undermine it.
Unlocking potential and expanding opportunity is a cornerstone to a just society.
His biggest strength now is that to a mass of people who don’t follow politics he is a Given, A Fact – like Thatcher, Blair or the weather.
Part of the charm of the new Housing Secretary is that one never quite knows what he is going to do next.
The first of a mini-series of pieces on ConHome this week about the most distinctive of the Prime Minister’s big aims.
Conservative messaging implies an implicit belief that there are no major state functions ripe for reform in any fiscal repair.
A small sliver of the housing wealth that is largely in the hands of those of us who have benefitted from rising house prices would go a significant way to filling the funding gap.